In this guide, we'll go over building an Abandoned Cart Workflow to encourage your users to finish their purchase. For an in-depth explanation of Workflows, check out this guide.

One of the best uses for Workflows is to build out an abandoned cart workflow. Use Workflows to remind your customers that they've left items in their cart, and encourage them to check out with additional discounts.

Navigate to the Workflow Builder by clicking Workflows in the navigation sidebar. In the Workflows dashboard, click Create New.

Fill in a name for your Workflow, and head to Continue to setup.

You should have already set up your App Groups and your Global Events. If you haven't yet, follow the guides linked above.

After naming your Workflow, you'll need to select the App Group. Choose the App Group you'd like to target and click Confirm Audience.

Next, you'll need to select an entry event to qualify your users for the Workflow. In the case, we recommend picking your app's equivalent of "added item to cart." This will qualify all users who have added an item to their cart. (In the next step we'll begin segmenting out users who did check out vs. did not.)

Before we dive into event listeners or push messages, you'll want to configure re-entry for your Workflow. Since this is a Workflow that can be entered more than once (as opposed to an onboarding workflow), you'll want to configure your Workflow to remove the limitentirely. Do so by clicking the Re-entry Limit button near the head of the page, and selecting Remove Limit.

We'll only re-enter users after they've completed the Workflow—so you don't need to worry about over messaging users. In other words, a user won't be messaged every time they add an item to cart within the same session.

Next, choose the amount of time you want to wait for the end user to complete the event—to check out. Keep in mind, the smallest window is 1 hour. If you're unsure where to start, we recommend waiting an hour. You can always adjust this number in the future.

Now that we've added an Event Listener to the Workflow, we've set the user down one of two different paths. After they add an item to their cart, Localytics will listen for the checkout event. If they check out within the 1-hour window, the end user will head down the did path for the Workflow. If they don't check out in that window, they'll head down the Did not path.

If a user does not check out within the 1-hour window, give them a little nudge with a push notification to remind them about the items left in their cart.

Click the + icon on the canvas under the Did not path.

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Choose the Send push message option from the popup modal. Name the message by clicking on the default name (in this case Untitled Message), next to the blue paper airplane icon. We suggest something like Reminder Message #1.

Next, build your message. In the create modal, you can add:

a title (optional),

body,

rich media (optional),

deep link (optional)

and key/value pairs (optional).

For our message we decided to go with:

Don't miss out! Your cart expires soon.

You didn't check out! An order this on point deserves some attention. Take 10% off your purchase 🙌

If you're working with different builds or your apps (iOS vs. Android), we'll copy over the Push title and the body between each creation tab. Since things like rich media, deep links, and key/value Pairs differ in how they're processed for each app, you'll want to make sure you build these in each app tab.

Once you've crafted your messages, click the Add button at the bottom of the modal to add the Push Message to your Workflow.

You've built your Workflow so that you send a push to folks who abandon your cart. Now it's time to add an Event Listener to see if they do what you suggested.

Click the + under the Push Message you just added.

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Choose Add event listener from the pop-up list. You'll see the Event Listener modal appear, where you can edit your Event Listener. Choose your checkout event from the first drop-down menu—it will be the same event you picked to initially build your Workflow. In the case of our example, it's Localytics Checkout.

Next, select the amount of time you want to listen for the event. If you're not sure, we recommend you go with 1 day. Click the Add button to add the event listener to your Workflow.

The Event Listener we added will listen for a checkout event for 24 hours. If they do not check out with the 24 hour period, we'll send them 1 more push to get them to take action. If they do check out, we'll send them a thank you message.

Under the second Did not path (after the push message reminding them to check out), click the + button.

+

Choose Send push message from the list. Name the message in the text field next to the blue paper airplane (in this case, we chose Reminder Message #2).

Next, add a body to your push message. Title, rich media, deep link, and key/value pair are all optional additions—so feel free to add those if applicable. Again, like when we added the first message, only the title and the body will copy across all of your apps. Make sure if you add any other elements (images, links), you add those for each app within the corresponding tab.

Click the Add button at the bottom of the modal to add your message to the Workflow.

If you end user does checkout after they receive the message, why not send them a quick thank you to let them know you appreciate them?

Click the + on the canvas under the Did path. (You can add your thank you to the first Did split, or the second, or both!)

+

Choose Send push message from the pop-up modal. Name the message by changing Untitled Message (next to the blue paper airplane) to something like Thank You.

Craft your thank you message, remembering to add deep links, rich media, and key/value pairs individually to each app tab. Click the Add button at the bottom of the modal to add the message to your Workflow.